Fort Hood shooting: Nidal Malik Hasan 'had contact with 9/11 imam'

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood gunman, had been in recent contact with a radical imam said to have been a "spiritual adviser" to two of the September 11 hijackers.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army doctor named as a suspect in the shooting death of 13 people and the wounding of 31 others at Fort Hood, Texas Photo: GETTY

By Nick Allen in Fort Hood

7:00AM GMT 10 Nov 2009

The communications, believed to be emails, between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, who is in Yemen, were sent over the last two years and had been intercepted by US intelligence agencies.

They were investigated but it was decided that they did not require following up. The disclosure will open US authorities to criticism that they failed to recognise warning signs about Hasan, and fuel fears that he was in contact with other extremists abroad prior to the shootings.

From Jan 2001 Al-Awlaki was an imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia where his services were attended by hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour, who is believed to have piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

During the same period his services were also attended by Hasan, whose mother's funeral was held at the mosque in May, 2001.

In a posting on his website on Monday, headed "Nidal Hasan Did The Right Thing", Al-Awlaki said Hasan had carried out a "heroic and virtuous" act and the only way a Muslim could justify serving in the US Army was to "follow in the footsteps of Nidal Hasan".

He said: "Nidal Hasan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people." The US Department of Homeland Security has described Al-Awlaki as an "al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader" to the two hijackers. He is also mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report as knowing them. He is not accused of knowing they were terrorists.

He left the US in 2002 and is now based in Yemen from where he preaches to US Muslims in online lectures.

It has also emerged that Hasan's name came up in an unrelated terrorist investigation.

US intelligence agencies examined communications, believed to be postings on the internet in which he discussed suicide bombing.

But they were seen to be in the context of an academic discussion, which fell within the boundaries of his job as a military psychiatrist, and it was decided to monitor Hasan rather than intervene.